Town of Eastham (Massachusetts) Historic Properties Survey 2013

FORM B - BUILDING

Assessor's Number US GS Quad Area(s) Form Number

Massachusetts Historical Commission
Massachusetts Archives Building
220 Morrissey Boulevard
Boston, Massachusetts 02125

Photograph

View from northwest.

Locus Map (north at top)

Recorded by: Larson Fisher Associates, Inc. with Kathryn

G rover

18-63

ORLEANS

EAS.608

Town/City: Eastham

Place: (neighborhood or village): South Eastham

Address:

10 Mary Chase Road

Historic Name: Ezekiel & Rachel Doane House

Uses: Present: single-family residence
Original: single-family residence
Date of Construction: pre-1 858 (ca. 1 830)

Source:

historic maps, visual analysis

Style/Form: Greek Revival

Architect/Builder :

unknown

Exterior Material:

Foundation: stone & brick

Wall/Trim:

Roof:

wood clapboard/wood shingles & metal
clapboard

asphalt shingles

Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: 30 x30' open shed

Major Alterations (with dates): rear ell (c. 1850); 1 -story
wing off left (north) side & gabled dormer c. 1880; 2 nd story
addition to left side wing (c. 1970)

Condition: altered

Moved: no

Acreage:

yes □ Date:

,84 acre

Setting: The subject property is located at the southeast
corner of the intersection of Governor Prence and Mary
Chase roads. It is bordered by single family residential
properties on the east and south and by open space and
wetlands on the north.

Organization: Eastham Historical Commission
Date: April 2013

12/12

Follow Massachusetts Historical Commission Survey Manual instructions for completing this form.

INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET

Eastham

10 Mary Chase Road

Massachusetts Historical Commission Area(s) Form No.

220 Morris sey Boulevard, Boston, Massachusetts 02125

II EAS.608

□ Recommended for listing in the National Register of Historic Places.

ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION

The main section of this early house reflects the Greek Revival style with its pedimented front gable roof, large corner pilasters
and simple trabeated door surround with 8-light transom and 5-light sidelights. Based on this visual analysis, the building
appears to be older than the 1880 date ascribed by the Assessor. However, inspection of interior finishes and construction
details would be needed to determine a more accurate date. In the meantime a construction date of ca. 1830 is suggested. The
front facade is three bays wide with the door at the left side. This oldest/original section has a large brick center chimney. It
appears that a portion of the recessed left (north) side ell is original due to its dressed stone foundation, probably having served
as a kitchen/service wing. This section has been greatly expanded to the north (section with brick foundation) and later with a
second story. There is also a rear ell which has a fieldstone foundation and thus was an early addition; it too has been
expanded both out and upward and now has an exterior brick rear wall chimney. 1 (See photos below.) A wall dormer on the
backside is angled between the rear and left side ell; it contains a sliding glass door at the second level that gives out onto a
wood balcony. A French door is located on the first floor below the balcony which provides access to an angled wood deck; a
wood exterior stairway provides access between the balcony and deck. A bulkhead is located north of the rear deck to give
access to the basement under the northerly portion of the left ell addition (that with the brick foundation).

Many of the windows have been replaced, but there are still a few 8-over-8 sash that could be original as well as a few authentic
wood window blinds. The three-part window in the attic level of the front pediment appears to have been an early alteration
(possible late 19 th century or early 20th century). An octagonal window in the gable end of the left wing, at the attic level, is a
much more recent addition. The house has a variety of sidings— wood clapboard on the front facade and wood shingles on the
sides of the earliest section. The rear ell and left side wing have a clapboard style metal siding.

A detached 30-foot by 30-foot open shed or carport located behind and south of the house was constructed in 2003. 2 It is
accessed via an unpaved driveway off Governor Prence Road that runs along the current south boundary. A fenced garden
occupies the lawn north and west of the house. Although the subject property is now a little less than an acre, it faces a large
expanse of open space to the north and west, with a stream running through it and wetland, giving the sense of the much larger
property it was in earlier times. Numerous mature trees and shrubs are contained within the property, many lining the south
edge of the driveway.

HISTORICAL NARRATIVE

This property was evidently part of a 200-acre tract that was owned by Governor Thomas Prence, the fourth Governor of
Plymouth Colony, and the person for which Governor Prence Road (which the property fronts) is named.

The fourth governor of the colony of New Plymouth, was Thomas Prence, who was a native of Lechlade, a
small parish in Gloucestershire, England, on the north side of the river Thames, where his father and
grandfather resided. He was born in the year 1600... Mr. Prence came to America in 1621, in the ship Fortune,
which arrived at New Plymouth in November, being at that time in the twenty-second year of his age... In 1643,
we find Mr. Prence actively engaged in promoting a new settlement at Nauset, or Eastham. ..A committee, at the
head of which was Mr. Prence, was now sent to Nauset, to make examination. ..They purchased. ..the
contiguous lands, belonging to the natives. ..Mr. Prence and his associates now obtained a grant of lands at
Nauset, and went resolutely forward with their new plantation... On the death of Governor Bradford, in 1657, Mr.
Prence was chosen his successor [and] He was accordingly annually chosen to the chief magistracy, from this
time forward, for sixteen years, until his death, which occurred in 1673.

Governor Prence died at his residence in Eastham, 29 March, 1673,* in the 73d year of his age. His remains
were brought to Plymouth, and, on the 8th of April following, honorably interred among the fathers on Burial Hill.

Governor Prence was twice married. His only son Thomas, went to England young, married there, and soon
after died. ..His eldest daughter Rebecca, was married to Edmund Freeman, Jr. of Sandwich. These were the
children of Patience Brewster, a daughter of the venerable William Brewster, to whom Governor Prence was
married in 1624. By his second wife, Mary, who was the daughter of William Collier, one of the assistants,
formerly a London merchant, and to whom he was married in 1635, he was the father of seven daughters, viz:
Mary, married to John Tracy of Duxbury; Elizabeth, to Arthur Howland of Duxbury; Judith, to Isaac Barker of
Duxbury; Hannah, to Nathaniel Mayo, of Eastham; Jane, to Mark Snow of Eastham; Sarah, to Jeremiah Howes
of Yarmouth; Mercy, to John Freeman of Eastham. 3

1 Town of Eastham records, an undated sketch plan in the building permit records depicts an area along the right (south) side that was to be rebuilt.

2 Ibid., building permit dated Sept. 8, 2003.

3 Jacob Bailey Moore, Lives of Governors of New Plymouth, and Massachusetts Bay (Gates & Stedman, 1848) pp. 139-174.

Continuation sheet 1

INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET

Eastham

10 Mary Chase Road

Massachusetts Historical Commission Area(s) Form No.

220 Morris sey Boulevard, Boston, Massachusetts 02125

II EAS.608

Genealogies indicate that the descendants of Mercy Prence and John Freeman married into the Doane family (also early settlers
of the area) and it is likely that an heir of Governor Prence who came into possession of this land built the c. 1830 dwelling. This
family connection is apparently germane to the purchase of the subject property by master mariner Ezekiel Doane (181 3-90). 4

An Eastham native, Ezekiel Doane had begun work on a fishing vessel when he was eleven years old and had worked his way
up to the mate's position by the time he was nineteen. Two years later he received his first vessel command, and he sailed in the
merchant service across the Atlantic until the Mexican War, when as captain of the brig Chattahoochee he ran supplies and
ammunition through blockades to American troops. When the war ended, Doane began trading with Mexico and is said to have
been the first to raise an American flag in a Mexican port after the war. According to one genealogy, Doane then returned to
Eastham ""and bought the old Governor Prince farm in Eastham, but after two years of land life, he sold out to Moses Eaton,
bought the brig Vande and returned to the southern trade." Doane took part in the California gold rush in 1849 but again came
home, repurchased the Prence farm from Eaton, "and there resided the remainder of his life. His farm was the largest in his
neighborhood." 5 Deeds indicate that Doane made this purchase in April 1851 and that the property had a dwelling house, barn,
and other buildings; in 1866 and 1869. Doane bought two other parcels, both with dwelling houses, that bordered this former
Prence estate. 6 The 1856 Barnstable County map, the earliest one to identify dwellings and their owners, shows Doane in this
rough location and the house at 10 Mary Chase Road was indicated as his in a 1948 deed that identifies it as the "old
homestead" of Ezekiel Doane. 7

The 1860 census shows Doane as a farmer in a household with his wife Rachel A. Lincoln Doane, whom he married in Boston in
1835, and their children Obadiah, then a twenty-four-year-old mariner, William, Charles, Rachel, Mary, and George; the
agricultural census for that year indicates that he owned 45 acres. In 1870 their daughter Georgianna, born in 1848, and son
Abelino, born in 1858, were also living in the household. In 1880 Obadiah, Charles, Georgianna, and Abelino were all still living
with their parents and by then Ezekiel Doane owned 94 acres of land.

Ezekiel Doane died in 1890, and the 10 Mary Chase Road appears to have passed to his son Abelino, who had married Bessie
Wareham of Eastham the year before. The 1910 census shows Abelino as a farmer living with his wife, his unmarried sister
Georgianna, and a boarding farm laborer. In 1918 Georgianna Doane died at the age of sixty-nine, and the 1920 census shows
Abelino and Betsey Doane in the house with farm laborer Eugene R. Cobb. The 1929 directory shows his address as King's
Highway, no doubt because neither Mary Chase Road nor the southern section of Governor Prence Road yet existed.

In 1944 Charles Frederick Moore, the son of Ezekiel Doane's daughter Rachel and her husband Frederick Moore, sold the
Doane homestead to Francis Gerald Chase of Canton. Born in the Roxbury section of Boston in 1897, Chase was a machinist
and factory foreman who married Mary Agnes Griffin of Canton in 1919; her parents, Thomas J. and Mary Agnes Ruane Griffin,
had emigrated from Ireland in 1893. In 1920 the couple lived in Dedham; Francis Chase was a leather factory machinist, while
Mary Chase worked as a telephone operator. By 1930 the couple had four children.

Tax records for 1947 show Francis G. Chase with a homestead parcel of 24.8 acres, a house, no doubt this one, valued at
$3000, a three-car garage, and 44 acres in two other parcels. Deeds of the 1940s that describe these three parcels note that
only the first of them had buildings and that Abelino Doane had sold off parcels of the homestead property between 1912 and
1936. The same deed states that "Georgianna M. Doane, who had a home in the Old Homestead under the Will of Ezekiel
Doane, died unmarried Feb. 1, 1918." 8

In 1956 Mary Chase sold the Doane homestead and 37,200 square feet of its 24.8-acre lot to Harmon A. and Ernestine V. Smith
of Agawam, who sold the parcel two years later to George S. and Mary S. Richards of Plymouth, New Hampshire. The Richards
couple owned 10 Mary Chase Road until 1973. The property changed hands three times more and was owned by Seamen's
Savings Bank in Provincetown when current owners Louis and Lucy M. Carlsen acquired it in 1990. 9

BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES

Barnstable County Registry of Deeds. Deeds and Subdivision Maps.

Deyo, Simeon L., ed. History of Barnstable County, Massachusetts, 1620-1890. New York: H. W. Blake, 1890.
Dudley, Dean (1823-1906). Historical Sketches of the Towns and Cities of Plymouth and Barnstable Counties, Mass. Wakefield,
MA: Dean Dudley, 1873.

4 Thurtle, Ed. Hereditary Order of Descendants of Colonial Governors (Genealogical Publishing Co., 2009) p. 138. Also, Enoch Pratt, History of Eastham,
Wellfleet and Orleans, Barnstable Co., Mass from 1644-1844 (1 844) pp. 12-18.

5 Alfred Alder Doane, comp., The Doane Family I. Deacon John Doane, of Plymouth; II. Doctor John Doane, of Maryland; and Their Descendants (Boston: by the
compiler, 1902), pp. 315-17. See also Godfrey Sparrow, Harvard, to Ezekiel Doane, 6 September 1843, Barnstable County Registry of Deeds (BCD) 31 :439;
Ezekiel Doane, master mariner, to Moses F. Eaton, Boston, trader, 7 July 1846, BCD 41 :35; Moses F. Eaton, Stoneham, to Ezekiel Doane, Eastham, 7 April
1851, BCD 50:224.

6 E. E. Knowles to Ezekiel Doane, 1 November 1866, BCD 93:163; Samuel Freeman, Boston, to Ezekiel Doane, 10 August 1869, BCD 100:258.

7 Elmer E. Colligan, Canton, to Mary A. Chase, Canton, 14 January 1948, BCD 686:539.

8 Colligan to Chase, BCD 686:539.

9 Mary A. Chase, Canton, to Harmon A. and Ernestine V. Smith, Agawam, 19 May 1956, BCD 941 :487; Harmon A. and Ernestine V. Smith, Agawam, to George
S. and Mary S. Richards, 1 1 June 1 958, BCD 1 007:1 1 6; George S. and Mary S. Richards, Plymouth NH, to Richard Donald and Stephanie W. Palmer,
Sudbury, 12 July 1973, BCD 1898:321 ; Seamen's Savings Bank, Provincetown, to Louis and Lucy M. Carlsen, Route 6, North Eastham, 2 April 1990, BCD
7120:224.

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INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET

Eastham

10 Mary Chase Road

Massachusetts Historical Commission Area(s) Form No.

220 Morris sey Boulevard, Boston, Massachusetts 02125

II EAS.608

Town of Eastham Tax Commitment Books. 1902-57.

Freeman, Frederick (1 799-1 883). The History of Cape Cod: The Annals of Barnstable County and of its Several Towns,
Including the District of Mashpee. 2 vols. Boston : Printed for the author by Geo C. Rand & Avery, 1860-1862.

Kittredge, Henry C. Cape Cod: Its People and Their History. 1930. Reprint. Orleans, MA: Parnassus Imprints, 1968.

Lowe, Alice Albert. Nauset on Cape Cod: A History of Eastham. Falmouth, MA: Eastham Historical Society. 1968.

Massachusetts Department of Conservation, Cape Cod Commission, and Boston University. Heritage Landscape Inventory
Report: Eastham, Massachusetts. Massachusetts Heritage Landscape Inventory Program, December 2010.

Massachusetts Historical Commission. "Reconnaissance Survey Report: Eastham." Typescript, Massachusetts Historical
Commission, Boston, 1984.

McKenzie, Matthew. Clearing the Coastline: The Nineteenth-Century Ecological and Cultural Transformation of Cape Cod.

Hanover, NH, and London: University Press of New England, 2010.
Pratt, Enoch. A Comprehensive History, Eccelesiastical and Civil of Eastham, Wellfleet and Orleans, County of Barnstable,

Mass., from 1644-1844. Yarmouth, MA: W. S. Fisher and Company, 1844.
Thompson, Elroy Sherman. History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable Counties,

Massachusetts. 3 vols. New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1928.
Trayser, Donald G. Eastham, Massachusetts, 1651-1951: Eastham's Three Centuries. Lexington, MA: Hancock Press for

Eastham Tercentenary Committee, 1951 .

MAPS

Walling, Henry F. Map of the Counties of Barnstable, Dukes and Nantucket Massachusetts Based upon the Trigonometrical

Survey of the State. New York: D. R. Smith and Co. ,1858.
Official Topographical Atlas of Massachusetts Compiled and Corrected by H. F. Walling and O. W. Gray. Boston: Stedman,

Brown and Lyon, 1871.
Atlas of Barnstable County, Massachusetts. Boston: George H. Walker and Co., 1880.

Atlas of Massachusetts from Topographical Surveys Made in Co-operation by the United States Geological Survey and the
Commissioners of the Commonwealth 1884-1888. Boston: Commissioners of the Commonwealth, 1890.

Atlas of Barnstable County, Massachusetts . . . from Official Plans and Actual Surveys. Boston: Walker Lithograph and
Publishing Co., 1905, 1910.

Continuation sheet 3

INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET

Eastham

10 Mary Chase Road

Massachusetts Historical Commission Area(s) Form No.

220 Morrissey Boulevard, Boston, Massachusetts 02125

II EAS.608

PHOTOGRAPHS

(credit Larson Fisher Associates, 2012-2013 unless otherwise noted)

i i

View from northwest. View from northeast.

Continuation sheet 4